


NEWS BULLETIN || FINDINGS 


Board of Foreign Missions 
of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. FORTHE YEAR 


156 Fifth Avenue, mm. Y. 19 l e) = 1920 


In summing up the finished task of a devoted missionary of the 
Board in West Persia, who passed on to her reward in March, 
1920, it is said that “wherever she found herself she found 
opportunity, and all who were about her found a friend.” 


The history of the Board of Foreign Missions for the year just closed contains many instances of 


missionaries who, “‘wherever they found themselves, found opportunity, and those about them found a 
friend”. 


The findings of the Board’s work for the year in 

Extending the Boundaries Africa could be expressed in the single word “Rein 

forcement”. The Board has voted that its mission 

in Cameroun shall take up work formerly carried on by the Basle and Baptist Missions (German and 

Swiss) ; and that while the Paris Society cares for the work in Duala and eastward, the Presbyterian 

Mission shall extend its work as far as the Sanaga and Wuri Rivers. Four large and one small stations 

(of the Basle and Baptist Missions) are already there, and two new ones will have to be opened. The 

Capital of the French colonies will be at Yaounde, Cameroun, and the mission has chosen a site for a 
station at the same place. This means that reinforcements are urgently needed. 


Reinforcements are also.needed to check the inrush of Mohammedans, for there is a Mohammedan 
village within two miles of Elat station, another within three miles of Lolodoit, another within four miles 
of Foulassi, and a very large one near the site of the new station at Yaounde. 


Chinese Giving by - Many missionaries in China have found an “oppor- 

as Leaps and Bounds ’”’ tunity” in extending the use of the Government Pho- 

netic System, as a means of popularizing Bible read- 

ing in Mandarin-speaking regions. They are also seeking to encourage “The China for Christ Movement” 
which is spreading throughout China and has for some of its definite objectives :— 


1. Every Christian a reader of the Bible and every church member attending Sunday school. 
2. Family prayers in all homes where there are two or more Christians. 

3. Enlistment of every Christian in bringing his relatives and friends to Christ. 

4. Definite efforts to secure proportionate giving. 


This means a solid foundation for the Chinese Church. Some churches are already making very 
encouraging advances in self-support. A missionary writes :— 


The Chinese are doing many new things and paying for them. Our budget gets less than 
twenty per cent of its money from the Board. There has been a big increase in gifts out here. No 
need to report to the churches in America that the missionaries are urged to stir up the Chinese 
Church to greater giving. What is needed to report is that the Chinese Church is increasing its gifts 
by leaps and bounds. 


March 15, 1920, saw the close of the last year of 

The Year of Jubilee Has Come the Jubilee Campaign of the Woman’s Boards of For- 

eign Missions; the Campaign for gifts of Service, of 

Prayer, of Gold and of Life. It is impossible to tabulate the first two, but the gift of gold has amounted 

to over $600,000 instead of the $500,000 which was the goal for the two-year campaign. One hundred and 

seventy Jubilee missionaries are on the field or are expected to sail within the next few months, while about 

half as many more have applied to the Boards for appointment in the near future. Far from decreasing 

the gifts to the regular budget, the women of the Church have given more than ever before, and are stirred 

by the visions of new work to be undertaken, courageously looking forward to greater efforts in the coming 

year. The Womans’ Boards have assumed for their constituency as their part of the $18,355,929 which 

the Assembly’s Board in cooperation with the New Era and Interchurch Movements expect to raise in 
1920-21, $1,200,000—$900,000 for the regular budget and $300,000 for buildings. 


a 192 
JUN 2 


Enslaved Chinese women and girls in San pes 

find in the missionary a “friend” and in the Refuge 

Saved ssa Slave Home in San Redeisch: and the Tooker Memorial. 

Home in East Oakland, safe abiding places. During 1919-20 one hundred Chinese girls and women have 

been cared for in these homes, and the Rescue Home in San Francisco has provided release from slavery 

or worse, for nineteen women and girls. This year the California State Board of Charities and Corrections, 

after making thorough investigation of the managements of the two Homes, has endorsed both and placed 
them on the list of “accredited institutions”. 


Are Korean Christians “all wool and a yard wide”? 


Not Ashamed of the Product They are. No need to be ashamed of the product of 
35 years of Protestant missions in Chosen! 

The Korean Church has always been composed of Bible-reading and praying Christians, but the real 
test of allegiance and fidelity is shown only by the amount one will suffer and sacrifice for a person or cause. 
Among the political prisoners now in Chosen are Christians ranking all the way from ordained pastors down 
to leaders of small groups, with enough of the humbler Christians to constitute a fairly representative body. 
They have sung and prayed in prison, individually or in groups, silently or audibily, with or without hymn 
books and Bibles. In some of the prisons regularly org anized Bible-study classes are conducted. The mem- 
bers of these classes cannot assemble together, but they learn much and derive much good from knowing 
that they are all doing the same thing at the same time. How do they get the information to each other? 
We do not know, but where there is a will there seems to be a way. 


Again the missionaries of the Board have been 

Honoring Faithful Service honored by Government, as Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, of 

India was honored several years ago, bu the bestowal 

of the First Class Kaiser-I-Hind Medal upon Dr. W.J. Wanless for his distinguished services to India. 

The fame of Dr. Wanless and his surgery reaches from one end of India to the other, and the hospital at 

Miraj has become more than a Mecca to suffering people, for they know the missionary physician and his 
associates are their friends. 


The Hospital has been self-supporting for more than twenty years. All its receipts in whatever 
form are credited to the maintenance and extension of the institution; seventy-five per cent of the service 
is free to the poor. 

A building for a Convalescent Home was one of the gifts of the past year. This was from the 


Maharajah of Kolhapur, and an after-the-war gift has been received’ in the form of an extension to this 
Home. 


At Kolhapur the Maharajah gave a field of 32 acres to the high school, and the prime minister sent 
the following letter to the mission: 

Hitherto, the whole work of uplifting the depressed classes has been done solely by your 
mission by approaching them directly. Now, by undertaking the tuition of the sons of the chiefs and 
higher aristocracy, you will be achieving that effect in an indirect and perhaps a better way. You 
are surrounding these minor high class youths with a far purer and nobler atmosphere than they can 
hope to breathe in their present environments, and when under your careful tuition their standard of 
morals is raised they will naturally, as leaders in society, be themselves spreading higher and nobler 
ideals of life wherever they go. Some of them will be called to rule tens of thousands of people 
and you can very well imagine their potentiality for good. That is why His Highness is very keen 
to send the sons of nobility to you. 


A New Day for the Opportunities of increased Christian service in Japan 

are numerous and compelling. The new Woman’s 

ee: Womanhood of Japan Christian College at Tokyo, a union institution in which 
six Mission Boards are cooperating, has completed the first year of its work, and has met with a success which 
surpasses the expectations of its founders. Nearly 150 students were enrolled. Over half of the students 
are professing Christians. Almost all of the members of the faculty are Christians, and there is no one 


eae with the teaching staff who is not friendly to the Christian ideals for which the institution 
stands. 


The destruction by earthquake of the Board’s prop- 

Built on Sure Foundations erty at Guatemala City, in December, 1917, was a 

great disaster from a material point of view, but it 

furnished also a great revelation of the strength of the work. The missionaries had built on sure founda- 
tions which could not be shaken. 


One-half of the people in the Republic of Guatemala, about one million, are Indian in blood. They 


are very strong physically and in their moral makeup are conscientious and hardworking. The Indian 
work of the Presbyterian Board centers at Quezaltenango. 


These Indian people are devoted to the Word of God, are people of prayer, and are learning to 
give proportionately and systematically. One congregation recently visited were worshiping in the finished 
half of a church building. When asked whose church it was they proudly replied, “It is ours,” 
and then said that they built as they raised the money. It was their church. 

And the resident in Guatemala City knows how to give. The members of the Men’s League have 
given days from their work to the Lord’s service, and they have given of their money to pay the rent of 
the poor people, besides giving their nights to preaching the Gospel. 


Education in Mexico, in spite of political condi- 

68 Per Cent Raised on the Field tions, has steadily advanced. The Turner Hodge 

School at Merida has been crowded to the doors and 

students turned away. In Vera Cruz, the Instituto Morelos was taxed to the utmost by applications for 

admission, while a boy’s school just opened has met with a like experience. San Angel school in the Fed- 

eral District registered 92 pupils, coming from the states of Tabasco, Michoacan, State of Mexico, Nuevo 

Leon, Tamaulipas, and the Federal District. The Ecuelas Preparatoria Presbyteriana, at Coyoacan, had 

the largest enrollment in its history. It is suggestive that of the $24,196.03 expended by the school for the 

year ending December 31, 1919, $16,635.52, or 68.7 per cent of the total receipts were raised on the field, 
and this in a year when poverty and famine are prevalent all over the Republic. 


Two great opportunities have opened in Persia in 

Laying Foundations the northeast and in the southwest. In the northeast, 

Meshed is the most important city, the great shrine 

city of Persia, visited annually by thousands of pilgrims, not only from Tabriz, Resht, Teheran, Yezd, and 

Kerman, but also from far-off Seistan and Shiras across the desert in South Persia, and from Kabul and 

Kandahan in the mountain fastnesses of Afghanistan. The patients in the mission hospital, in addition to 

the above places, come from various cities in Russia, in Asia, especially from Askabad, Baku, Bokhara, Kero, 
and Tashkend. 

The foundations of a strong station have been laid. The mission force has been doubled the past 
year, and a fund is well begun which is to provide adequate hospitals and schools. In many a village in 
Western Afghanistan, which sent its blind or its lame to the mission hospital in Meshed to return with 
eyesight and health, a welcome is awaiting the evangelists whenever the political prohibition of mission 
work in Afghanistan is relaxed. 

One man, cured of appendicitis at the Meshed Hospital, returned after two years to ask the mis- 
sionary to try to induce some Americans to start some industry—a mine or a factory, where no religious 
discrimination would be allowed, for the sake of “many who would in that case become Christians”. The 
man’s faith is not, apparently, that of a “rice Christian,” for he has a good job and draws good wages. 
He learned of Christ at the hospital and seems to sincerely desire the Kingdom of God. 


Much is being said these days about the policy of 

Philippine Independence the U. S. A. in the “Filipinization” of the Philippine 

Islands. America has been developing the Islands for 

two decades and training the Filipinos for independence, and the time has now come when, believing them 

fast approaching full competence for self-government, the United States is rapidly passing over to them 

complete political powers and such official pos#ions as are still held by Americans. Many unprejudiced 

foreigners in the Islands who have at heart the welfare of the people think that this Filipinization is pro- 

ceeding somewhat precipitately. 

The Filipino, however, leans strongly towards independence at an early date. The national aspiration 

found joyous and general expression on “Flag Day” (October 30th), when for the first time the Philippine 
flag was permitted to fly side by side with the Stars and Stripes. 


In spite of obstacles Siam is among the most prom- 
In A Mood for the Gospel ising of the foreign mission fields. There are notable 
advantages in the openness of the entire country, the 
goodwill of all classes of people, the avowed favor of the Government, the willingness and sometimes the 
eagerness of high officials to send their children to our schools, the disposition of the authorities to prefer 
graduates of our institutions for official positions, the frankly expressed gratitude of the King and his 
ministers for the services which the missionaries have rendered to Siam, and the comparative absence of 
‘that bitter poverty which so oppresses the traveler in India. There are no cast¢s, no ancestral worship, 
no child marriage, no shutting up of women in inaccessible zenanas. The door is wide open for a great 
Christian work in Siam if the home Church will make it possible. The Siamese people of all classes are 
in a mood to be taught Christian principles. 

They appreciate what has been done for them, not only by the missionary, but by other agencies like 
the Rockefeller Foundation. This was shown in the prayer of a Siamese pastor, when he thanked God 
for raising up Mr. Rockefeller, such a great benefactor of mankind, and asked that God would preserve 
the lives and health of Mr. Rockefeller and his household, including his buffaloes and cattle. 


4 


ica’ ‘ In the “Far East,” which means to the Presbyterian 
pms yale) Church India, China, Siam, Japan, and Chosen, in these 


To Be a Friend days of disturbed world conditions, there is an instinc- 
tive falling back on Christian principles, and the guidance of civilized nations, especially America. It is not 
all an easy road for the missionary or Christian. In China the governor of one of the provinces requested 
of the gentry that 40 per cent of the land be used for poppy cultivation. When they demurred because of no 
call for the drug and the fear that they might get in trouble with an enraged populace, they were told that 
there were 10,000 opium smokers in the army and each one carried a gun. In one section where little or 
no opium has been used for years, the soldiers were paid in opium. 

In Siam at only one station, that of Chieng Rung in Yunnan Province, there is an area to be cov- 
ered as large as the states of New Jersey, Delaware, and nearly all of Rhode Island. The people live in oA 
isolated valleys, and the field has a population of 500,000 to 600,000. The missionaries at these stations 
have over 3,000 villages to be reached. The only discouragement here is the meagre force at work. 

But the people are eager to cooperate with the missionary in overcoming the difficulties. 


America’s opportunity to prove herself a friend is great; the opportunity of the Presbyterian mis- 
sionary is equally so. 





FINANCIAL FINDINGS 


The Treasurer’s books closed with all obligations for the year met and a surplus 
of $79,406.29. The deficit of previous war years of $620,538 was reduced to $380,- 
679.58. 


RECEIPTS of the year from all sources amounted to 
$3,718,776.42 


APPROPRIATIONS for the new year beginning April 1, 1920, 
For IMMEDIATE OBLIGATIONS known as the REGULAR BUDGET, 


$3,933,938.95 


For the NEW ERA BUDGET ENTIRE of which the above $3,933,938.95 is a part 
— $7,318,303. The difference between these two amounts, or $3,384,364.05, will be 
applied, when raised, to urgent needs of all kinds in the various missions, not included 
in the “regular budget”. 


For the INTERCHURCH BUDGET, $11,037,626. 

When this latter figure is received it will be used for additional equipment and 
facilities asked for by the missions in the Interchurch Survey, and for the occupation 
oi hitherto unoccupied areas in different countries. A TOTAL TO BE RAISED OF 
$18,355,929. IS ALL THIS EXCESSIVE? 

This question has been asked, but the Board replies 


“Measured by the need and by the appeals of the missionaries, against the work 


that ought to be done and can be done, in the light of Christian motive, the amount is 
more than justified.” 


Send to 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, for “The Foreign Mission Budget”. 


May, 1920 Form No. 2717 


